Science to the Rescue The Cure of Hay Fever

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6954, 6 July 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

Science to the Rescue The Cure of Hay Fever

TCHOO

TCHOO! Atchoo! This is not the only Beaapu of sneezes, for in tin spring “sneeze weeds" flourish on all sides. Science, however, has

come to the aid of the hay fever victim with a treatment which consists in giving the sufferer a hypodermic injection of a fluid extract of pollen a couple of weeks before the symptoms are due to appear. But the pollen that gives one person hay fever —or it may be “rose fever,” which is an earlier variety of the same complaint—may be of a different kind from that which causes the trouble in another person’s .case. To effect a cure—or, at least, to prevent the onset of the malady—the extract used must be from the particular kind of pollen that causes the trouble in the patient under treatment No other kind will serve. Hence the adoption of a very Ingenious method. Ten or a dozen slight punctures are made along the patient’s forearm, and into these alia rubbed as many different kinds of pollen—ragweed, rye grass, timothy, etc. —only one kind for each puncture. One of the tiny wounds (but none of the others) presumably reddens and begins to itch. It is, say, puncture number four. That number is marked on the doctor’s list as ragweed. It is exactly the information ho requires. Ragweed in this instance is the mischief-maker, 'h

It is necessary that the pollens used for making extracts shall be pure. For collecting some kinds, a fairly gatts-

factory method consists in placing paper bags over the ripe flowering beads of the plants. When, several days later, the bags are removed, the pollen is shaken out. 4 special tank has recently been designed to permit the storing of plants with their stems in water and their flowering parts leaning forward. Thus arranged, with sheets of glazed paper beneath, they will drop their pollen upon the latter. It is collected from the glazed paper and put through a fine sieve, to remove all plant debris. Then it is thoroughly dried, and in that condition will keep for long time, available for making the medicinal extracts.